Homebrew stores in Columbus, OH

Does anyone know of any good homebrew stores in Columbus Ohio?

http://www.winemakersshop.com/

Never been there, but have heard it is a good store.

Thanks buddy!

Yeah, I can definitely recommend Winemakers Shop. Very knowledgeable people.

(There's also Gentile's in Upper Arlington/Grandview Heights, and Neil House Brewery out by the airport, but I've tried neither so can't provide an opinion on either of them.)

Just now finding this (a few months after the first post) because I was hoping to find an alternative to the Winemaker's shop. The main reason I don't like going to the store is the prices. All of the grain, last time I stopped in, was $2.50/lb and yeast was $7+. Also, everything else is just slightly over price... When I compare it to online stores, including shipping & etc, the online stores usually come out $5-10 cheaper per recipe. It's a bummer, I'd like to just run down there and scoop up supplies on brew day (so I don't have it all sitting around the house), but it's really not worth it. Being able to shave $5-10 off each recipe is very substantial. I was actually hoping to find a LHBS that can beat the online stores... it's strange to me that Winemaker's does not.

Other than that, the store is great for anyone in Columbus interested in actually going into a LHBS and taking a look around.

It might be worth the drive to run over to Dayton. BrewTensils has better prices and a bigger selection. (I've been to both)

If you cannot find a local source which has 'reasonable pricing' you might want to check out MoreBeer.com online. The shipping will probably kill the deal on a small order but if you can muster up an order of $59 shipping is free anywhere in the country and my orders from Cal to Mich have taken a little over a week from the order date. Not good if you want to brew today but ok if you are stocking up for future brew days. They will not ship 50lb sacks of grain at the bag pricing but will ship any quantity in 10lb and smaller at the higher pricing for 10lb and smaller quantities. Base malt grain is usually around $1.30lb and once in a great while you can catch a sale that lowers it even further. You can easily hit the free shipping minimum with a couple of pre assembled kits or 3-4 batches of ingredients of roll your own. Compared with the $2.50lb you stated it is much cheaper........unless the $2.00lb was for specialty grain. Specialty grain starts around $1.80lb at MB.

dp176406 said:

Just now finding this (a few months after the first post) because I was hoping to find an alternative to the Winemaker's shop. The main reason I don't like going to the store is the prices. All of the grain, last time I stopped in, was $2.50/lb and yeast was $7+. Also, everything else is just slightly over price... When I compare it to online stores, including shipping & etc, the online stores usually come out $5-10 cheaper per recipe. It's a bummer, I'd like to just run down there and scoop up supplies on brew day (so I don't have it all sitting around the house), but it's really not worth it. Being able to shave $5-10 off each recipe is very substantial. I was actually hoping to find a LHBS that can beat the online stores... it's strange to me that Winemaker's does not.

Other than that, the store is great for anyone in Columbus interested in actually going into a LHBS and taking a look around.

Click to expand...

Right, there's almost too many great online stores (price-wise & selection-wise). It just seems odd to me that a LHBS, in Columbus, Ohio, can't out-compete online stores. I didn't really explain my reasoning for this before, but my thinking is that I'm surprised that the local availability of ingredients is trumped by online-economy-of-scale. Like, I see that every other online store shares the same supplier. That's a lot of middle-men fees. However, Columbus, Ohio is a city surrounded by fields. Getting bulk grain, malting, and baking it seems like something a LHBS could do on their own in order to way out-compete online retailers. Or other simple solutions such as having local fab shops bid on producing mash tun false bottoms that beat online prices. But then I walk into Winemaker's shop and they simply retail all of the same wholesale brands that the online stores retail. So... they're necessarily competing with mega-online-volume-movement right out of the gate, which seem unsustainable. I'm impressed that they've lasted so long, then again there's a lot of localvore-consumerism hype in Columbus. I dunno, just floating some ideas. I guess the LHBS is just something I've yet to wrap my mind around. An answer would be cool, but in the mean-time I'm going to continue shopping online.

I feel you. I believe the thing standing in the way of the local movement applying to beer is the commercial support needed to make it worth doing. Without larger ( bigger than hobby level) contracts and purchasing, there is not enough profit or consumer supply chain to make it worthwhile.
There happens to be a small craft malthouse a few hours away from me, in NC.

http://riverbendmalt.com/

It is very exciting to see someone doing it but, even they don't make their money on homebrewers. They'll sell you a 50# sack of you come check them out but if you read the propaganda on the site you'll see that they are making money from bigger contracts to brewpubs and other larger scale customers.

I frequent the winemakers shop as well and agree on the price. However they always help me out with any questions that I have which you can't find online. I've never been but there is Gentiles in Grandview, I hear they have lower prices.

The Gentile's in Grandview (I've now been there a couple times, when Winemakers Shop was closed) is in fact a bit cheaper, at $2/lb of grain versus $2.50 at Winemakers Shop. It's DIY, though -- crush your own grain (which I don't mind).

Another advantage they have is longer hours, M-Sat 10-10 and Sun 12-7.

There is a brand new shop in Uptown Westerville called Buckeye Brewcraft. He is ramping up his stock, but he has awesome prices. He'll sometimes drive to LD Carlson and pick up merchant to save on shipping. Check them out, or on Facebook.

Stubbeez said:

There is a brand new shop in Uptown Westerville called Buckeye Brewcraft. He is ramping up his stock, but he has awesome prices. He'll sometimes drive to LD Carlson and pick up merchant to save on shipping. Check them out, or on Facebook.

Click to expand...

Merchandise, not merchant. Autocorrect...

I grew up in Westerville. Hooray for beer!

Something good about hearing that the home of the Woman's Temperance Movement now has its own LHBS!

Definitely recommend Buckeye Brewcraft in Westerville.. his prices are awesome. I've been to Gentiles as well as Buckeye Brewcraft. I will stick with BBC.